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Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

sciencemag.org

201–210 of 225 posts

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#201

This conspiracy idea is quite far fetched. And it was probably spread as fake news, by someone with a political agenda to smear the reputation of China worldwide. (And if you’ve been watching closely, this is a very well funded campaign, that has been very active for the past 3 years.) But let’s try to think this through. If they (China) were researching it, then it is possible that this could’ve accidentally escaped…

Ah, it's a far-fetched conspiracy because there's actually a whole other conspiracy that's much bigger and pushing the message. Gotcha!

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need biotech people?

We need smart people. The topics are only ever software development but none the less I’ve reviewed your comment history and you can have an invite if you want.

https://quickforget.com/s/3eb2e66ce84357193db05b6a4dc4ed37

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#203

This conspiracy idea is quite far fetched. And it was probably spread as fake news, by someone with a political agenda to smear the reputation of China worldwide. (And if you’ve been watching closely, this is a very well funded campaign, that has been very active for the past 3 years.) But let’s try to think this through. If they (China) were researching it, then it is possible that this could’ve accidentally escaped…

China is, contrary to what media might want you to believe, not a sinister empire of evil. They are, however, a culture with a strict requirement to save your face at all cost.

Following Hanlon's Razor, never assume malice when stupidity will suffice. IF, and that's a big if, this virus was somehow bio-engineered, the most probable explanation is that it escaped from the adjacent lab due to humans making mistakes. Now what do you do in that situation? A virus you're legitimately researching escapes from a state sponsored lab. You try to cover it up, of course, which isn't even hard because it might have developed in nearby bats anyway. That way, nobody looses their face and you can try to fight the virus with everyone else.

That is an easier and more logical explanation than some "bioweapon".

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#204

The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. However, the Wuhan pathogen research laboratory is still a worthy source to consider relating to this virus. Accidents DO happen, and China has a history of making mistakes leading to dan…

> The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all k…

Because by far the simplest explanation is that this is a zoonosis. The virus is not particularly virulent, it doesn't seem to have an easy time of human-to-human transmission, and interesting coronaviruses have been found in animals in Asian wet markets many times before.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#205
post #86

Virus's mutate and with how climate change is affecting everything; wouldn't it be tragically ironic if climate change accelerated how fast the common cold (for example) mutates Great and informative article unlike my comment

There are several links between climate change (of any origin) and the spread of pathogens. Not mutation rate that I know of, but the ability to break out of existing 'reserve' locations which persistently harbor them into areas where they're not normally found.

Case in point: the plague. Still very much alive in some areas of Asia and Africa, and localized outbreaks still occur today. But displacement of carriers species (e.g. rats) from those areas to others due to various climate-shift-induced pressures (such as too much or too little food, or human intrusion) can trigger outbreaks far and wide. The original plague period and spread was in many ways a perfect storm of factors but a re-occurrence is feasible (albeit today's improved knowledge of the cause, hygiene and containment measures should prevent it reaching anything like the scale once seen).

Another example: A few years back Myrtle Rust made its way over to NZ for the first recorded time, and one theory of how it got here was being carried on unusually warm/humid air currents from Australia which allowed it, as a kind of mold, to survive the journey.

Another vector: Melting permafrost releasing preserved pathogens to which today's populations (human and otherwise) have no immunity is another 'fun' climate change scenario. I find that one less plausible mostly because it would require human intrusion or some other means of transmission from the thawing site to hosts. But eh, maybe.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#206
post #203

This conspiracy idea is quite far fetched. And it was probably spread as fake news, by someone with a political agenda to smear the reputation of China worldwide. (And if you’ve been watching closely, this is a very well funded campaign, that has been very active for the past 3 years.) But let’s try to think this through. If they (China) were researching it, then it is possible that this could’ve accidentally escaped…

China is, contrary to what media might want you to believe, not a sinister empire of evil. They are, however, a culture with a strict requirement to save your face at all cost. Following Hanlon's Razor, never assume malice when stupidity will suffice. IF, and that's a big if, this virus was somehow bio-engineered, the most probable explanation is that it escaped from the adjacent lab due to humans making mistakes. No…

I wouldn't even call this a Chinese trait exclusively. It's definitely more pronounced there, but when didn't governments and companies all over the world lie about mishaps until it wasn't possible to hide the truth anymore? Look back no further than Iran shooting down that plane. That thing was crystal clear, yet they tried to deny it at first. The difference is that the Chinese government can mostly hide the truth when it comes to their own citizens though...

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all k…

If one would engineer a virus, surely one would make it more dangerous than this?

I thought of that too, than my tinfoil hat went further on thinking that maybe this is just a QA test, a mild version of the pathogen released to see how far it spreads to fine tune the "production" version.

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#209

The market resides in the heart of the city so it could be that there was some other route of transmission through carriers without symptoms, animals etc. To claim that this came from a lab certain requires more evidence than its mere existence. The whole RNA sequence is available online and so far no expert to my knowledge has claimed it looks synthetic.

Some sort of stock market manipulation ploy? https://www.theverge.com/2020/1/31/21117663/twitter-zero-hed...

Re: Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea of this being an engineered virus wittingly unleashed on the world by some malevolent Party conspirators strains credulity--the notion is preposterous, especially from a country as obsessed with internal stability as China. How about the idea that this is an engineered virus unwittingly unleashed on the world by some accident/incompetence? If one reads the history of nuclear weapons/reactors, and how all k…

If one would engineer a virus, surely one would make it more dangerous than this?

That's assuming, for the sake of argument, of course that a biolab creating these types of viruses for "offensive" purposes would only focus on one, extremely lethal virus and nothing else. It's easy to imagine that less lethal viruses are also created to study the effects of different modifications, and these viruses may be kept under less strict supervision than the worst ones (increasing the risk of it spreading).

Anyway, there's no evidence so far to support any of these theories, but considering China's record I guess it wouldn't surprise me. For now I still think the easiest explanation is the most likely.

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